Br'er Rabbit's dream, fromUncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings: The Folk-Lore of the Old Plantation, 1881
The Br'er Rabbit stories can be traced back totrickster figures in Africa, particularly thehare that figures prominently in the storytelling traditions inWest,Central, andSouthern Africa.[4] Among theTemne people inSierra Leone, they tell children stories of a talking rabbit.[5] Other regions of Africa also tell children stories of talking rabbits and other animals.[6] These tales continue to be part of the traditional folklore of numerous peoples throughout those regions. In theAkan traditions of West Africa, the trickster is usually the spiderAnansi, though the plots in his tales are often identical with those of stories of Br'er Rabbit. However, Anansi does encounter a tricky rabbit called "Adanko" (Asante-Twi to mean "Hare") in some stories. The Jamaican character with the same name "Brer Rabbit" is an adaptation of the Ananse stories of the Akan people.[7][8]
TheAfrican savanna hare (Lepus microtis) found in many regions on the African continent: the original Br'er Rabbit.
Some scholars have suggested that in his American incarnation, Br'er Rabbit represented theenslaved Africans who used their wits to overcome adversity and to exact revenge on their adversaries, the white slave owners.[9] Though not always successful, the efforts of Br'er Rabbit made him afolk hero.
Several elements in the Brer Rabbit Tar Baby story (e.g., rabbit needing to be taught a lesson, punching and head butting the rabbit, the stuck rabbit being swung around and around) are reminiscent of those found in a Zimbabwe-Botswana folktale.[10]
Folklorists in the late 19th century first documented evidence that the American versions of the stories originated among enslaved West Africans based on connections between Br'er Rabbit andLeuk, a rabbit trickster inSenegalese folklore.[11][12]
Stories of Br'er Rabbit were written down byRobert Roosevelt, an uncle of U.S. PresidentTheodore Roosevelt. Theodore Roosevelt wrote in hisautobiography about his aunt fromGeorgia that "she knew all the 'Br'er Rabbit' stories, and I was brought up on them. One of my uncles, Robert Roosevelt, was much struck with them, and took them down from her dictation, publishing them inHarper's, where they fell flat. This was a good many years before a genius arose who, in 'Uncle Remus', made the stories immortal."
Some stories were also adapted byJoel Chandler Harris (1845–1908) for white audiences in the late 19th century. Harris inventedUncle Remus, an ex-slave narrator, as a storyteller and published many such stories that had been passed down by oral tradition. He claimed his stories were "the first graphic pictures of genuine negro life in the South."[13] Harris also attributed the birth nameRiley to Br'er Rabbit.[citation needed] Harris heard these tales in Georgia. Very similar versions of the same stories were recorded independently at the same time by the folkloristAlcée Fortier in southernLouisiana, where the Rabbit character was known asCompair Lapin inCreole. It has been argued that Beatrix Potter based herPeter Rabbit tales on Brer Rabbit.[14]
In a detailed study of the sources of Joel Chandler Harris's "Uncle Remus" stories, Florence Baer identified 140 stories with African origins, 27 stories with European origins, and 5 stories with Native American origins.[15]
AlthoughJoel Chandler Harris collected materials for his famous series of books featuring the character Br'er Rabbit in the 1870s, the Br'er Rabbit cycle had been recorded earlier among theCherokees: The "tar baby" story was printed in an 1845 edition of theCherokee Advocate, the same year Joel Chandler Harris was born.[16]
Algonquin Nations in Eastern North America similarly depict rabbits and hares as cunning and witty. Many stories of rabbits' or hares' wit include connections to the trickster, shapeshifter sometimes referred to asNanabozho.
In "That the People Might Live: Native American Literatures and Native American Community" by Jace Weaver, the origins of Br'er Rabbit and other literature are discussed. Although the Cherokee had lived in isolation from Europeans in the remote past, a substantial amount of interaction was to occur among North American tribes, Europeans, and those from the enslaved population during the 18th and 19th centuries. It is impossible to ascertain whether the Cherokee story independently predated the African American story.
In a Cherokee tale about the briar patch, "the fox and the wolf throw the trickster rabbit into a thicket from which the rabbit quickly escapes."[17] There was a "melding of the Cherokee rabbit-trickster ... into the culture of African slaves."[18]
There are eight books byEnid Blyton that are collections of stories featuring Brer Rabbit and friends, most of which appeared in various magazines in the late 1930s.
Br'er Rabbit inWalt Disney'sSong of the South (1946). Disney's version of the character is more stylized and cartoony than the illustrations of Br'er Rabbit in Harris' books.[21]
On April 21, 1972, astronautJohn Young became theninth person to step onto the Moon, and in his first words he stated, "I'm sure glad they got ol' Brer Rabbit, here, back in the briar patch where he belongs."[24]
In 1975, the stories were retold for an adult audience in the cult animation filmCoonskin, directed byRalph Bakshi.
In 1984, American composerVan Dyke Parks produced a children's album,Jump!, based on the Br'er Rabbit tales.
A direct-to-video adaptation from Emerald City Productions was released in 1989 and re-released various times in the 1990s, distributed by Family Home Entertainment (F.H.E.).
Rabbit Ears Productions produced two Br'er Rabbit tales ( Brer Rabbit and the Wonderful Tar Baby andBrer Rabbit and Boss Lion)
1998'sStar Trek: Insurrection saw theStarship Enterprise enter a region of space called theBriar Patch. At some point during a battle with the Son'a,Commander Riker states that it is "time to use the Briar Patch the way Br'er Rabbit did".
There is a brand of molasses produced byB&G Foods named after the character.[26]
InSam Kieth’sThe Maxx, the character Mr. Gone refers to Maxx as “Br’er Lappin” and indeed Maxx is worried if he removes his mask he will find he has a rabbit's head beneath it.
In the 1982 filmSavannah Smiles, Savannah tells a story of Brer rabbit to her captors Bootsie and Alvie.
In theTristan Strong series, Br'er Rabbit appears as a recurring character. He is depicted as a cynical but well-meaning mentor god.
^Smith, Alexander McCall (1989).The Girl Who Married A Lion and Other Tales from Africa. Pantheon Books, NY. pp. 185–89.
^Arnold, Albert (1996).Monsters, Tricksters, and Sacred Cows: Animal Tales and American Identities. University of Virginia Press.
^M'Baye, Babacar (2009).The Trickster Comes West: Pan-African Influence in Early Black Diasporan Narratives. Univ. Press of Mississippi.
^Ritterhouse, Jennifer. “Reading, Intimacy, and the Role of Uncle Remus in White Southern Social Memory.” The Journal of Southern History, vol. 69, no. 3, 2003, pp. 585–622. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/30040011. Accessed 9 June 2021.
^"The tar-baby motif in a Bocota tale: Blísigi sigabá gule ('the opossum and the agouti')".Latin American Indian Literatures Journal.6. Dept. of Foreign Languages at Geneva College: 10. 1990.
^Becattini, Alberto (2019). "Genesis and Early Development".American Funny Animal Comics in the 20th Century: Volume One. Seattle, WA: Theme Park Press.ISBN978-1683901860.
^Holtz, Allan (2012).American Newspaper Comics: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. p. 83.ISBN9780472117567.
^abBrasch, Walter M. (2000).Brer Rabbit, Uncle Remus, and the 'Cornfield Journalist': The Tale of Joel Chandler Harris. Mercer University Press. pp. 74, 275.
Backus, Emma M. "Tales of the Rabbit from Georgia Negroes". In:Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 12 (1899). pp. 108–115.
Edwards, Charles Lincoln.Bahama Songs And Stories. Boston and New York: Pub. by Houghton, Mifflin and company; [etc., etc.], 1895. (Bahaman stories aboutB' Rabby)
Fortier, Alcée. and Alexander Street Press.Louisiana Folk-tales: In French Dialect And English Translation. Boston: Pub. for the American folk-lore society, by Houghton, Mifflin and company; [etc., etc.]. 1895. (stories ofCompair Lapin collected in Louisiana)
Storr, Virgil Henry. "B’ Rabby as a 'True-True Bahamian': Rabbyism as Bahamian Ethos and Worldview in the Bahamas. Folk Tradition and the Works of Strachan and Glinton-Meicholas (January 1, 2009)". In:Journal of Caribbean Literatures. Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 121–142, 2009, Available atSSRN1711268
